How to Use LinkedIn for Better Sales Conversations

LinkedIn has been around for 15 years, but not too many people/business are using it to generate sales conversations. Since 80% of B2B leads come from this platform, it is important to know how to use LinkedIn for the right strategies to get more leads.

For any business to generate great sales conversations on LinkedIn, they need to go back to the basics of building their own personal brand. Building credibility, showcasing solutions for prospective problems and creating conversations are key to having a successful digital brand. Selling on LinkedIn is about creating relationships. It’s never been about clicking on random links to make sales.

Approach LinkedIn the right way to build a powerful sales and network funnel that can consistently generate leads for your business, over time.

So, what is the secret to creating excellent sales conversations on LinkedIn? Simple; it’s meaningful, engaging content.If you are not sharing your content on LinkedIn, then users will see your competitors share content and give them the outreach that you should be getting. Your buyers are on LinkedIn looking for content.

Why is LinkedIn important for Lead Gen and Client Engagement?

The world is shrinking and this has taken a hit on lead generation for B2B tech companies.

Over 93% of B2B marketers believe that LinkedIn is the most effective site for lead generation.

LinkedIn has the audience who you network with. While visibility is important, in LinkedIn, you can engage directly with influencers and other businesses to create more tangible business opportunities.

B2B marketers love LinkedIn. They use the platform to republish blog posts, maximising the number of people reading and sharing their ideas. You can drive readers to other content that your company employees have published by linking them to your article. LinkedIn advertising helps generate qualified traffic to landing pages which helps audiences sign up for more articles and information.

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Optimize your company profile:

Having a strong personal brand makes a huge difference on LinkedIn. As a brand, it is important that you utilize all the features effectively, and align sales and marketing goals on your LinkedIn page.

Invest in a strong business profile that showcases your brand. Optimizing your profile as a B2B front runner is where lead generation begins. If you are on LinkedIn, you have 7 seconds to make a good impression so that browsers click to know more about you and your company.

Engage with LinkedIn influencers and follow their personal pages. This gives your brand the potential to bring positive exposure to your business. Understanding LinkedIn Analytics is a necessity because it allows B2B companies to aim and re-aim their LinkedIn marketing strategies as industry trends fluctuate.

Do not join LinkedIn just to increase sales. Do not be a pushy salesperson, try and become a thought leader. For example, do not be the guy who says “ hey, buy my consulting service”, be the guy who says “ I have a consulting service and here are some ways to solve an issue”.

What kind of content is needed for sales engagement?

When it comes to content, take into account the type of contentthat can be created and shared from other sources as well. Be consistent. Share a piece of content on your platform once a day. Establish a sharing community and ask your network to share content mutually. A steady flow of curated content from different networks will ensure people read and know what you write.

Status Updates: LinkedIn status updates are a lot like the ones you post on other social networks. There are a few techniques and strategies to generate better leads with status updates:

Hashtags: There is a hashtag community on LinkedIn which is a new feature that shows relevant content that business people want to see. Create relevant hashtags while posting content that the members of the community can view. Join 3-4 hashtag communities to understand what types of hashtags are trending and can be used with relevance to your content.

Mentions: Mention people in your content or post if you are talking about them. Companies and brands, or even individuals who will find the update useful but may not be directly linked. Only mention the influential ones, and moderation is important.

Go till the limit: Feel free to use all the 1,300 characters that you are allowed per post. More characters mean more keywords, which in turn means greater visibility. Research shows that surprisingly, people read long posts on LinkedIn than short ones.

Native videos: In 2017, LinkedIn launched on-platform native video, and the algorithm shows that brands are responding to it. These videos are uploaded directly and embedded in LinkedIn. Unlike an external video link, you can view these videos on the LinkedIn platform itself. If your company uses video marketing as a techniqueto generate leads, native videos can get you more views and attention on the site. If your network of peers and influencers respond to the video, LinkedIn showcases it to a larger audience base.

LinkedIn Articles may seem like a fading trend to many fast marketers but if your company already hosts a successful blog on the company website, you can put it into LinkedIn as an article. This can help promote your reach and amplify leads beyond your company’s website. The posts are searchable, can possibly be distributed on a pulse channel, and the content becomes a permanent extension of your personal brand.

Get the team in on it!

If your brand is looking for powerful advocates to share your company’s blog content and case studies, then you probably already hired them. Research shows that over 50% of all employees of a company post about their employers on social media. Asking them to share updates related to your brand can generate traffic and leads. According to Travis Wright, people tend to listen to their social connections more than official marketing campaigns, and techniques like this can result in 5 times more traffic, and 25% more lead.

Use LinkedIn advertising for your content

LinkedIn advertising raises awareness and gets the word out to a new audience. LinkedIn allows you to sponsor content on your company page, which can help build followers and reach for your content.

Sponsored content: Use this kind of ad when you share visibility driven articles, videos, or images on your company page.

Dynamic ads: Personalize your messaging to prospects and using these ads will allow your content to appear on the sidebars of users’ LinkedIn page.

Text Ads: These are best utilized for the top of funnel content. Split testing on text ads is very simple and they are similar to dynamic ads.

Sponsored InMail: A very popular form of advertising, this allows you to send targeted messages to people with prospective interests in your brand.